Nichols’ tweet came before the results were tabulated in the City of Waukesha, which voted 71% to 29% to limit political donations, and in Scott Walker’s home city of Wauwatosa, which voted 64% to 36% to limit political donations. What’s more, citizens in Lake Mills voted 73% to 27% in favor of limits on political donations. These are promising results, especially considering more than a few of those communities could be considered more conservative than liberal.

Another great thing? Erik Brooks easily defeated incumbent Tom Zepecki 62% to 38% to become South Milwaukee’s next mayor, and Laura Gramling Perez defeated Cedric Cornwall in for the seat in Branch 32 of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

And best of all, as I reviewed election results across the state, I saw a lot of progressive candidates who emerged victorious in their races

A troll? Does that mean that only agreement is allowed on this site? Yes men, only? Can’t debate your issues? Then blow them vuvuzelas!

But, thank you Other Side. Well parried. Let’s reword that statewide advisory referendum to read: “Resolved: the Bill of Rights should be amended to deprive citizens organized as corporations from exercising their collective political speech, heretofore protected by the First Amendment.” If it passes, the Democratic party, the Sierra Club, and the League of Women Voters can dismiss their official spokesmen. The Capital Times would have to shut up about politics, since it is a corporation. (No more “Views of The Capital Times” in the Sunday State Journal.) Since I disagree with them, they’re nothing but trolls, anyway. Enjoy the silence!

Debating actual issues is not a problem. Debating deliberate moronic troll bait is never worth anyone’s time. Kindly do people a favor and check the topic, please, before commenting. It seems the root of that key word, ‘thoughts,’ might have escaped your notice, but I sincerely hope it is not beyond your personal ability to one day accomplish some and coherently apply it to a topic.

David, if you were a conservative, you’d understand that America was built on a meritocracy. That started with public education. Thanks to your oligarchs, the best education and health care, …. is increasingly reserved for the offspring of the elites.

Look whose running Wisconsin. RoJo married the daughter of a billionaire. Walker married wealth and he’s got the backing of the Koch brothers, who started off as billionaires, thanks to their Dad. Another son of a billionaire, Chris Abele, is running Milwaukee County. Would Mary Burke be running for Governor if her Dad hadn’t started Trek? Sensenbrenner’s an heir to the old Kimberly Clark wealth.

Are you seeing a pattern?

It’s exactly the opposite of Abraham Lincoln, the everyman, who raised himself up by his bootstraps to become President of the United States.

Geez John, couldn’t you make it even a little bit challenging? This is too easy. “America … started with public education.” Really? There were public schools in mid-18th Century America? (But no teachers unions, right?) Harvard & Yale used to be as easy to get into as a WalMart but only now they’re exclusive? Yes, Abe Lincoln raised himself up. So did Tommy Thompson (father ran a grocery store.) Richard Nixon (same.) Ronald Reagan (dad sold shoes.) Scott Walker (father a small-town minister.) John Boehner (one of umpteen kids; dad ran a tavern.) Steve Jobs. Judith Faulkner. Are you seeing a pattern? (At the risk of more name-calling from Mr. Wisniewski.)

Yes Blaska, it is easy to see your faulty patterns and continuing failure at cognitive debate. Take some historical instances that cannot be applied under present circumstances regarding controlling access to higher education and conflate them as proof presented in the form of ridiculous questions. Finish by taking a preemptive personal dig at the blog-owner. You haven’t made any point to debate.

Quite a leap with a lot of historical ground ignored between Lincoln to Tommy T. No historical changes in that hundred years that might have influenced anything in that time frame, right? In a shorter time frame my dad raised a family (four siblings here) on a single income working at a blue collar job. I went to college (not needing loans) on the money I made working a summer job. Any college students you know doing that these days who are not big name student athletes?

It must be tough to be abandoned by the people whom you appear to want to curry favor with and not even they can seemingly stand your schtick anymore. You missed out on that Walker gravy train and someone else got the newly created position of UW vice-president for public relations at $178K/yr, plus prestige in certain circles.

You wrote: “Geez John, couldn’t you make it even a little bit challenging? This is too easy.”

LOL

You wrote: “America … started with public education.” Really? There were public schools in mid-18th Century America? (But no teachers unions, right?) Harvard & Yale used to be as easy to get into as a WalMart but only now they’re exclusive? Yes, Abe Lincoln raised himself up.

From what grade school did Lincoln graduate?

From what high school?

From what college?

From what Law School?

You wrote: So did Tommy Thompson (father ran a grocery store.)

Before Wal Mart, owning a grocery store was a sign of affluence. It was called “prospering in dry goods.” See the Lincoln County War, (Billy the Kid, John Chisum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTyJi6nqItk ), which was over monopoly control of the County’s grocery store. If you were a conservative you’d know that the state monopoly got the federal cavalry to protect their monopoly.

You wrote: “Richard Nixon (same).”

See above.

You wrote “Ronald Reagan (dad sold shoes.)”

Must have sold a lot of them to afford Eureka College. Not only that, Ron had plenty of time for football, belong to a frat, and get heavily involved in student politics. Unlike Boehner, he didn’t have to work outside jobs to afford a private college.

What high school did Reagan attend?

Scott Walker (father a small-town minister.) Must have paid pretty well for him to afford tuition at Marquette.

From what high school did Walker graduate?

You wrote: John Boehner (one of umpteen kids; dad ran a tavern.) Thanks for reminding everyone that the Taliban and large swathes of the Republican party agree that birth control is wrong.

No, Boehner’s Dad ran the tavern his grandfather started. Business was good, because Cincinnati was a union town, that paid good wages. Boehner’s Dad could afford to send him to the local Jesuit high school.

You wrote “Steve Jobs”

From what grade school did Jobs graduate?

From what high school did Jobs graduate?

Since you brought up Steve, name all the parts of the IPhone he (or Apple) invented. I’ll give you a hint, there weren’t any. Jobs deserves great credit for his marketing vision, but 100% of the stuff he sold through Apple was first created by GOVERNMENT research.

Liquid Crystal Display NIH (National Institute of Health) NSF (National Science Foundation (Page and Brin worked for them on their page counter which led directly to Google’s search engine)) DoD (Department of Defense)

Micro Hard Drive DoE DARPA

Micro processor DARPA

Multi-touch screen DoE CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), NSF, DoD

GPS DoD Navy

SIRI DARPA

HTTP/HTML CERN

Cellular Technology
US military

Internet
DARPA

You wrote: “Judith Faulkner”

Glad you figured out that women vote.

From where did Ms. Faulkner get her M.A. in Computer Science?

Are you seeing a pattern?

Except for Boehner, all the Republicans YOU listed relied on PUBLIC education for high school or college. Please note, the oligarchs rarely do. They increasingly send their kids to elite prep schools (Phillips-Exeter,….) that are the pipeline to the Ivy League schools which dominate the white collar thugs who control Wall Street.

PUBLIC libraries are part of PUBLIC education. I’ll bet they played an important role in Abraham Lincoln’s education.

No, John, there were no public libraries when Lincoln was growing up. He borrowed books from friends and friends of friends. You seem to be implying that it is no longer possible to advance in life without the paternalistic intervention of Big Government. If so, Lincoln does not serve your argument well. To the contrary, the incontestable growth of Big Government seems to have produced the impediment to betterment that you suggest.

You are including then the paternalistic intervention into women’s choices about their own health care and reproductive rights, intervention on local control of their own election hours and location preferences for their voting age constituents, intervention on the, “we built it ourselves,” corporate responsibility to share in the costs of public infrasturcture they use to generate their profits.

So the bigger corporations should be able to dump their manufacturing wastes into your water supply, spew their dust across your back yard and not be obligated to follow weight limits on public roadways, all those nasty paternalistic regulations that cost the job creators so much of their profits.

As I ponder if you are able to multitask (listen and read) there is a pause button so that you can keep up with reading the scrolling text. Some facts about SMALL GOVERNMENT from a historical perspective as you seem to be hot about throwing out historical references.

As I’ve decided you are not stupid and you are not crazy, that leaves the obvious.

“Lincoln used the ultimate power of big government, war, to trim back the largest oligopoly of his era, Big Cotton.”

Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War over … cotton? Not slavery? Not secession? If so, cotton won because we still have it. Casper, you are a strange individual. Hey Zach, he’s yours not ours! Good thing he’s not a troll!

This is so re-assuring for the oligarchs. They know which ever party is in power, they’ll still be in control.

Which is why it’s incumbent on you to rally your side to issues on which conservative and liberals overwhelmingly agree, prosecuting Wall Street, legalizing pot, and ending foreign military occupations.

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. …… is to the right, what repealing the Second Amendment is to the left. Those are examples of issues designed to keep the 99% from uniting against the 1%.

You have to make something to sell. If Ford, Henry hadn’t developed the mass-produced automobile, if Hershey, Milton hadn’t developed the chocolate bar, if Jobs, Steve hadn’t developed the iPhone etc. Yes, these products need workers to make them but they needed inspiration and entrepreneurial skills to create value where it hadn’t been before.

Thanks Zach. I take David’s comments as an indicator of just how concerned the oligarchs are about these votes in wingnut districts. The thought that right and left might agree on something is what keeps Mike Grebe, Charlie Sykes, … up at night.

Clearly noticed in less than eight seconds, and unmistakably full of shit, Blaska again either can’t fathom or deliberately ignores (@ 7:38am 4/09) the prior comment, a clear answer set out by John C. “You can’t have one without the other,” i.e. workers are SIMULTANEOUSLY paid a living wage WHILE they manufacture a PRODUCT which they will eventually consume.

Undaunted by facts or logic, Dave reflexively contorts into a full cranial/rectal inversion (a move he has obviously perfected through daily trolling practice) as he again follows his nose up his ass and tries to change the FOCUS away from the terms of an argument he just totally lost into yet another diversion from the thread topic.

This topic is money in politics and people in Republican leaning strongholds apparently being very dissatisfied with the current state of bought politicians, and evidence trumping wing-nut beliefs.

Nonquixote tries so hard to sound intelligent, you got to have some compassion for the poor fellow. Must have really worked on this one. “Now where did I put that thesaurus? If I include enough latinate words, will it mask the fact that I resort to good-old, monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon swear words? Maybe randomly capitalizing words will help! Must not forget to work in the usual name-calling. Wish I could think of something original. Or make a cogent argument. But my friends in the echo chamber will think it’s great! We always agree with each other. Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! Faux News, Koch Brothers and ALEC! Oh my!”